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[This thread is now for all CFH players. The two teams have reformed into one. There is hope but sadness also.]

GM

The Bargon Flit's cargo ramp lowers, cyan light from within revealing Sirra, still in her thinsuit and carrying the DXR-6b disruptor rifle.

With delicate adjustments, the lip of the ramp touches down whilst the ship maintains hover.

The ventral turret is no use at such low altitude so Preach appears behind Sirra, his robes catching the wind. There's an EL-16 blaster carbine hanging in the cargo bay if he needs it.

Maybe Winta is still inside, manning the dorsal turret. Presumably Lieutenant Bek is aboard too.

Amidst the wreckage of an old gravsled, Amos and J.B. huddle over the supine, unmoving form of Jix, shielding him from the down-draught. No sign of 2BB-2.

Mirror Team are so coated in dust, at a distance they look like plaster statues.

Rumbles from the shaking ground. Flames gout from fissures around the debris field. And somewhere not far enough away, the sound of a TIE/sf space superiority fighter.

Your work on GH-531 is done.

Amos

The seamed face of the ex-lawman tightens a little at the death of his comrade and Amos lets out a quiet sigh of pain, both physical and emotional. It had been a long day and it was not over by far.

He slipped his arms under Jix and gently lifts the Verpine into his arms, craddling him against his chest as he stands.

"Lets go JB. Lets get off this damn rock."

Sirra steps out, looking a mess, a patch over one eye, and blood and other substances smeared over that side of the face. As she sees Jix, her face falls, visibly.

“That should have been me. I think in that equation the universe lost. It lost a healer and kept me.”

There is a bit of an audible catch in her voice, rather unusually for her where other than ‘professional’ her main tone was anger.

“Let’s go. JB, I have news for you and we need to get on our way so I can give it to you.”

Winta

She reached out to feel for the location of the Tie, ready to smite it down.

[Ghosted for Pandemonium. Get well soon, buddy!]

Preach

Still wheezing from breathing toxic atmosphere, Preach waited for his team-mates to enter the ship's magcon field before going to their side. No point adding another casualty.

He saw Amos and J.B.'s faces, Jix's lifeless body. It was amazing that any of Mirror Team had survived amid such destruction. Preach hung his head in a sad, short prayer to the Whills before looking up again.

"2BB-2?" He asked.

The little astromech unit was also missing.

Jeleasi'Beni

The lethan twi'lek remained crouched after Amos stood. It took every ounce of willpower to keep her emotions in check. She fought to hold onto the balance between the light and the dark within her. Her body was in pain and she tried to ignore it, but moving didn't help. Despite the stim, the pain was becoming more notable as her own adrenaline was fading. Grief waged a war to drag her into the darkness again. But grief wasn't the enemy. It was herself. Grief was an emotion, albeit a negative one, but one that demanded to be reckoned with in due course. It was unrelenting, and she had felt so much of it in her life, and more than she thought she could handle on this mission. Losing Babay and now Jix...

Jix wasn't lost. Jix was a part of the Force now. But it had only been four years since JB had come to understand how the Force was a part of her and everything else. Maybe Preach would better understand the metaphysical truths. All JB felt was the grief that, left unanswered, would turn to rage. Slowly she stood, wincing as she did, and followed after Amos.

She heard Sirra's words and nodded as she passed the ex-First order Assassin... or whatever she had once been... and started up the ramp of the waiting craft. Her eyes were cold and sharply focused, but at least there were no red/yellow rings around the irises right now. Something Preach and Winta would surely understand. Amos and Jix had seen it. It had taken considerable effort to rein the emotions in and fight back the temptation of the Dark Side of the Force. The Purgill, Babay, her life as a slave, her abandonment and being sold into slavery by her own family... and the loss of Jix was still threatening to topple her over the edge again, maybe for good this time.

Preach was at the top , just inside the Bargon Flit's open hatch. When she crossed the force-field's threshold, he asked about 2BB2.. Babay.

She walked past him as she let her pack slip from her should so she could reach inside with her offside hand, and withdrew the little droid head unit. She held the 'lifeless' piece of machinery up so Preach could see it. No words were needed. She continued toward the cockpit. Bek was could fly, but JB was better. If he was actually still in charge of the Resistance mission, JB didn't seem to care. She handed the droid's control module to Bek as she spoke, "I'm flying. Keep that safe... Maybe there's a chance for a reboot... and download off the..."

She stopped speaking. Words were unnecessary.

[OOC Nice post ]

Amos

He moved to find a place to gently lay Jix's body down and secure it until such time as arrangements can be made. He closed his eyes and bowed his head for a moment, saying a silent prayer over the body of his friend.

[Ghosted for Pandemonium]

Preach

Preach wasn't a droid tech, even his Binary was marginal. He could only hope that the part J.B. had salvaged could resurrect the audacious BB-unit. At least Bek knew some of the best techs in the Resistance. If anyone could help, it'd be the Mon Calamari.

There was a new sense of urgency now. They had to escape. To honour the sacrifice of their friends.

"There's still one TIE/sf out there. It's hit but it'll be back."

Preach helped Amos secure Jix's body.

"We took out the comms relay, the AT-AT and the turbolaser turret..." A pause to cough painfully, "...lost track of the TIE Echelon. Did you see it?"

Sirra

She slides in next to JB, starts going over the copilot controls and settling in. Her eyes had their own chill, and the look of someone who was struggling not to slip back into an all too comfortable role.

“Sometimes the wrong person goes. Jix was a healer. I’m a killer. In the greater sense it cannot be right that our positions are not reversed. Jix owns whatever excuse for a soul I have left, and is gone. To a place I doubt I can ever follow.”

Her own icy demeanor seems on the verge of cracking.

She hadn’t even mentioned the droid. At the moment that was a topic she didn’t want to consider.

Winta

She checked the sensors, and reached out with the force ...

"Come on Tie, where are you?" she asked quietly.

GM

Bek takes 2BB-2's head unit from J.B., turning it over in his hands. The ports are scorched but he seems optimistic.

"His memory core should still be intact." Says Bek, pondering, "I might know a fellow...."

The Mon Calamari logistics officer has all the best hook-ups in the Resistance.

As Sirra and J.B. head to the cockpit, Bek calls after them.

"Rebooting inertia compensators now! We'll be ready to jump to lightspeed as soon as we clear atmo."

En route they'd see Winta strapped into the dorsal quad laser turret.

J.B. might be surprised to find a Resistance X-Wing pilot sat in the cockpit. He swaps from the co-pilot seat to flight engineering, allowing Sirra and J.B. to take the controls.

A young Nubian man with a dapper goatee in a filthy red flight suit, he looks like he's been through hell too. His fingertips are bloody, the nails missing.

"Lieutenant Tosin Bastian, Starfighter Corps." He says to J.B., dialling in the sensors. He looks up, "I don't know what that installation was but interference from it's crazy. Ain't getting a ping on that last TIE while we're sitting here."

Smoke Team haven't actually explained their mission to Bastian yet. And since he's been lost in Unknown Regions for weeks, he doesn't know about Ghidrah's existance either.

There will be time for that later.

The Corellian light freighter accelerates away from the Ghidrah bunker as the mountainside starts to collapse inwards, spewing flame.

What's the plan? Nose-up and climb straight to orbit? Head for the ion storms? Who will man the ventral turret?

The Bargon Flit is also equipped with a military-grade sensor jamming. Activating it will alert every ship in the system that the Resistance is near but hostiles will have trouble locking onto the Flit.

Someone better start thinking about programming the navicomp too. What is your next stop? The Resistance base on Ajan Kloss?

Winta

"Guys," she called. "Just get us out of here. They all know we are here - so subtlety is probably going to be wasted on them.

"Head for the ion storms whilst you program the navicomp to somewhere, anywhere that is quick to program. Do a couple of quick jumps to shake off pursuit."

[Ghosted for KenSeg]

Amos

"Echelon's toast." He said to Peach, adding laconically, "Threw my machete at it."

With Jix's mortal remains secured and the prayer said, Amos looked at the old Guardian of the Whills.

Preach looked rough, sounded rougher. Amos rummaged in Jix's gear---the Verpine had been the team's medic---pulling out a stimpack to hand to Preach.

"A shot of Bacta should help with your lungs."

That done, Amos made quickly for the ventral turret.

[Ghosted for Art in the Blood]

Sirra

"Affirmative." She replies to Winta by comlink, before turning to Bastian.

"Bastian, lay in a course for Ajan Kloss with a double jump."

Sirra flips switches to soft-start the sensor jamming.

"Activating sensor jamming now." She says, nodding to the Twi'lek beside her, "J.B., skirt the ion storms then punch it to orbit once the navicomp's set."

Sirra has one more thing to add.

"And by the way, your Relnard guy is alive and well. The enemy has him on deep cover assigment on Nubia...." She hesitates, "You should know that he's been re-educated. He might not be the same."

[Ghosted for Pandemonium]

Preach

He was grateful for the medicine. A stimpack contained spice, Bacta, and a cocktail of other chems that spread quickly through the bloodstream, healing and reviving.

Preach injected himself in his thigh, pocketed the empty and headed after Amos.

Instead of dropping into the turret, the Guardian continued around the ring until he found Lieutenant Bek.

"How are we doing, Lieutenant?"

If they were ever going to jump to hyperspace, they needed the inertia compensators working or they'd be squished into jelly against a bulkhead. Preach wasn't technical but he could lend a extra pair of hands. Bek was a Mon Calamari not a Besalisk, after all.

GM

J.B. flies and processes the information Sirra has given her.

"Nubia? That's my home world!" Says Bastian. He talks as he programmes the navicomp.

"Tech hub of the Galaxy. Industrial Automation are based there, you know, who make astromech droids? Could do with one of those right now!"

In the aft, Bek monitors the readout from the inertia compensators as they reboot.

"Looking good here, thank you Preach."

Hopefully it stays that way. The Resistance officer squeezes Preach's shoulder.

"We're nearly there! Head to the blindside airlock, keep your comlink open and report any sighting of that TIE."

Being a Corellian light freighter, the Bargon Flit's portside is completely blind except for a grainy cam feed.

Better to have a spotter physically in the airlock.

The TIE/sf hasn't reappeared yet, its two-man crew probably undertaking hasty in-flight repairs like the Flit.

Fangs out, the freighter swoops across the mirror-like lagoon, rippling the surface as it accelerates towards the violent, flashing dust storms.

In the ventral turret, Amos can see his reflection staring back up at him from the Meleenium 'waters'.

In the dorsal turret, Winta pans around with the quad lasers. There's always a chance that the TIEs came from a mothership, although unlike Imperial TIEs, most of the First Order's TIEs have hyperdrive.

Preach arrives at the blindside airlock and squints through the viewport... just in time to see the TIE/sf screeching across the lagoon towards them.

It must have cut through the mountains and circled wide, using the massive interference from the Ghidrah bunker as cover. Preach sees the flashes of green plasma.

The TIE crew must be aware of the freighter's blindside, but have only a few seconds to exploit it.

In the cockpit, wide spectrum sensors are still fritzing. The jammer's initiated, solid blue on the console, so for now this is an eyeballs only dogfight.

[Ghosted for Pandemonium]

Preach

Squinting through the grimy viewport, Preach pined for a decent pair of cyberoptics. He knew it was deluded though, trying to stave off aging by replacing your natural form with machinery. Entropy would merely focus elsewhere in your body.

Learning from the Living Force, Preach knew that to be truly present in the moment, one had to accept death.

...One didn't have to let walk it all over you though. Seeing the TIE Fighter, Preach called into his comlink.

"TIE, nine low!"

Winta

She swung her guns round in the direction of the Tie, hoping it was not so low as to be in her bind spot, and hoping to take it out.

Jeleasi'Beni

Knowing Maljean was still alive was just a fact right now. She didn't have the time, nor the emotional capacity to process that. All her her efforts were focused on keeping herself neutral... in the grey... finding the balance between the light and the dark. She had a ship to fly and that meant she needed to connect with it, become part of it, become the Bargon Flit. The ability was the first manifestation of Force Sensitivity in her life. She didn't know what it was then, other than she could understand machines, and they did what she wanted them to do.

Skirting around the Ion Storm was all well and good until they got caught on the curve by a heavily armed pursuer. But... Twin Ion Engines didn't fare well in the interference generated by such storms... Ion Storms.

The only way out... is through.

JB banked dorsal over to the storm and she brought the Flit in as tight as she could. Why scare everyone right away. When she went into the storm she would need the inertial dampeners at full. So she had to buy time... the tighter she went meant that the Tie would have follow just as tightly to keep the flit in their forward firing arc. If they did ride as tight as she was, they risked a plasma cascade should the Ion field generators wash out... plus they would be in Winta's field of fire. If they swept out wide they would have to run as hot as they could to turn back in for a shot run right toward the Flit and the storm, and that put them in Amos' ventral firing arc.

From the cockpit, Sirra could see how close she was riding the edge of the storm. Did she suspect what JB was planning?

I am you... You are me... Let's see if we can draft a wake and splash around a little.

Sirra

She looks over at JB … and nods.

She starts adjusting settings and power flows to support her actions.

“We are the storm.”

[Ghosted for KenSeg]

Amos

Sat in the ventral turret, he scanned around, feeling pretty confident behind the four laser cannon barrels.

Amos adjusted his comlink and checked in on Winta in the dorsal turret.

"Bottle of Corellian whisky for whoever scratches the TIE." He offered the team captain.

GM

The disc-shaped starship rolls over the TIE's attack and veers into the storm, riding the front. Rain lashes the cockpit, the hull quivers, then for a moment the rain clears and ahead an awesome spectacle appears. Another cyclone, grinding against the first.

The TIE/sf pursues but the light freighter has insane sublight speed for such an old junker. With the ion storms and sensor jamming, the TIE Special Forces pilot can't lock-on with his mag-pulse missiles.

Either side of the Bargon Flit the clouds glower and lightning arcs between the two storms.

The Force Awakened aboard the ship feel the pressure of the Sith threat swell, almost unbearably. Staring into the clouds they can almost see the Battle of Exegol; the ships of the Resistance transfixed by the lightning of the Phantom Emperor.

That insidious laughter, triumphant, cruel, crawling inside the mind.

Other dark visions in the clouds---

Maljan, older, sadder, standing of the railings of a sky apartment, contemplating the end.

Group Captain Talkar sitting in the cockpit of a Xi-class shuttle, staring aimlessly at the navicomp.

Amos's son, a boy of high school age, in a gym class, suppressing his horror as he watches two other kids beat each other to death with electrified Z6 batons. The gym teacher wears a First Order emblem.

Maz Kanata mourning over the body of Leia Organa laying in twilit state.

Desert sands piling up against the blackened ruins of Tuanul village.

---From behind the TIE fighter opens fire, its angled deflectors bouncing the Bargon Flit's quad lasers.

But then the laughter stops and the lightning recoils; pulsating flashes deep within the clouds---

Maljan blinks and steps back from the brink.

Talkar punches in the co-ordinates for Jakku and throttles up.

Amos's son grabs the wrist of one of the kids before the killing blow is struck. The entire class turn to stare at their gym teacher with rebellion in their eyes.

Leia's body suddenly vanishes, the shroud falling to the table and Maz looks up in hope.

And in Tuanul the morning light reveals a bright blue sapling, a Tuanulberry, growing in a burned out hut.

---Sirra has angled the Flit's deflectors too and theirs are undamaged. The ship flies into an eddy of still air, allowing both Amos and Winta to target the TIE f-fireball! It's destroyed in an instant.

The outer hull of the freighter glows with a purple corona. One final, immense flash of light inside the clouds and then the ionised dust storms go black. The ship breaks through, nose-up and a field of stars appears.

"Clearing upper atmo... Now." Bastian reports, before skim reading the astrogation display, "Calculating double jump. One minute."

You have made it off the rock. How do you react?

Amos

Lost in the visions flashing before his mind's eye, Amos's hands gripped tightly on the handle of the gun, turning white from pressure. His mouth is quietly whispering "No....David.....No...." as he sees the scenes of his only child. Are these the truth of where his son was taken or just a mental projection of his deepest fears in an attempt to attack them mentally?

And then a ripple of pride fights through the fear for his son as he sees him stand on his own two feet and defy what is wrong, just like he had hoped that he had taught his son in their many talks on a quiet evening on the front porch of their home.

Winta

She felt an immense sense of loss at the loss of her mentor...

It took the edge off the satisfaction having hit the Tie.

"I owe you a Corellian whisky, Amos," she responded to the kill. All satisfaction gone.